Attachment 4767Attachment 4768Just wanted to show the difference between the two queen cells. The smaller cell was onet that was produced by a commercial queen producer about the first of March and the other was one produced by a small sideliner who produces his own queens with great success. These cells are huge, and I have made several splits using these cells. There is much talk about how the size of the cell doesn't make much difference, but I strongly disagree. When you examine and compare cells there is considerable difference in the size of the pupa at day 13. These monster cells were produced using a three story five frame colony as both the starter and finisher. Hope you enjoy, don't pay any attention to the date on top of the incubator. I keep my cells in that box a day or so prior to making splits.

03-18-2013, 06:14 AM

jim lyon

Re: Commercial queen cell vs sideliner cell

What you have demonstrated is the difference between well fed cells and not so well fed cells. It relates primarily to what a queen producer chooses to demand of his cell builders and finishers. Queen cells care not if they are being raised by a commercial producer, a sideliner or a hobbyist.

03-18-2013, 06:19 AM

deknow

Re: Commercial queen cell vs sideliner cell

It isn't clear to me exactly what we are looking at. The smaller cell is in a plastic cell cup, and I can tell how deep the cell is (from the tip of the cell to the "bottom" of the inside of the cell). The larger cell appears to be (if I had to guess) in a wax cell cup attached to a piece of wood? It does look larger, but think the wood exaggerates this difference.

deknow

03-18-2013, 06:34 AM

broodhead

Re: Commercial queen cell vs sideliner cell

Actually the JZ cup exaggerates the cell size more that the wood plate than the dipped cup does on the plate. These are made using dipped cups made from a dowel. If you measure the distance from the bottom of the cup the self dipped sideliner is almost if not twice the size. Jim stated that the cells don't care who raises them, true but why would they. The beekeeper should care, better cells make better queens, better queens make better hives.

These monster cells were produced using a three story five frame colony as both the starter and finisher. Hope you enjoy, don't pay any attention to the date on top of the incubator. I keep my cells in that box a day or so prior to making splits.

Med or deep 3 story 5 frame hive? Did you use a Cloake board?

03-18-2013, 07:00 AM

broodhead

Re: Commercial queen cell vs sideliner cell

NO

03-18-2013, 07:40 AM

gmcharlie

Re: Commercial queen cell vs sideliner cell

Its interesting how one group wants monster queens and another group wants little tiny small cell queens. Agreed it is a nice looking cell, but it means nothing. its a one to one comaprision, without any data on how the queen does. DO huge queens mate and fly as well? (I don't know, just an observation) I do know small russian queens do as well as big carniola's

03-18-2013, 11:31 AM

Michael Bush

Re: Commercial queen cell vs sideliner cell

I want well fed queens. There is an indirect (but not direct) relationship between a large queen and a small queen and how they were fed. A toy poodle is not smaller than a standard poodle because of feeding. It is smaller because of genetics. But the runt of a litter is often smaller because of malnourishment. So the cause of a queen being small could be either. Also, the size of the cell is also an indirect relationship with the amount of food. A very "runty" cell is probably because there isn't much food in it. But a medium sized cell could have more food than the queen can eat and an overly large cell may not have any significant amount more than that. I've seen cells that were several inches long and had no amazing queen in them...

All in all, in the picture being discussed, it seems likely that the larger one was fed better. The larger queen may be due to feeding as well. Again, a really runty queen is probably malnourished, but a medium sized one may just be genetically small.